In the fast lane

Brown Summer Theatre's Bees buzzes

by Bill Rodriguez

AS BEES IN HONEY DROWN. By Douglas Carter Beane. Directed by Rob Barron. With Sandra Laub, Taylor White, Jill Blythe Riemer, Susan Deily-Swearingen, and Algernon D'Ammassa. At Brown Summer Theatre through July 3.

If you didn't catch Douglas Carter Beane's Advice from a Caterpillar last year at Brown Summer Theatre, don't miss his As Bees In Honey Drown this time around. An Off-Broadway hit for nearly a year, it's a funny yet trenchant look at the allure and consequences of glittering fame, Manhattan-style, as well as one roller coaster of a ride.

Along with Nicky Silver, Beane can draw the most convincing portrayals of the cynical scene since Dorothy Parker was trading bon mots with Noel Coward at the Algonquin. Beane made the big time with the screenplay for To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar, but has used his Hollywood success to keep bankrolling theater work.

From word one in As Bees In Honey Drown we are swept up by fast-talking, fast-living Alexa Vere de Vere (Sandra Laub), just as is novice novelist Evan Wyler (Taylor White), the literary flavor of the month. The stylishly dressed and Sally-Bowles-quaffed Alexa says she is a rock recording producer whose life has been "nothing short of amazing," and she wants him to pen the film of her life. David Bowie wants to play her father, she brags. She's flying off to the south of France for the weekend, friendly with this Lord, that international financier. In her Audrey Hepburn mid-Atlantic accent, she scatters names like a priest sprinkling holy water. Evan feels anointed. Would he be interested in $1000 a week to collaborate on a treatment? She places a roll of bills in his hand, and he takes it like he's been handed the keys to heaven. So when she says her accountant won't trust her with credit cards, he thinks nothing of putting her buying spree gifts for him, and later items, on his card, to be paid whenever.

Under Rob Barron's expert direction, oh how we, and he, want the carnival ride to whirl around forever. "You are not the person you were born -- who wonderful is? -- you are the person you were meant to be," is Alexa's siren call. We can forgive Evan for not seeing past the Gucci togs to the grifter beneath. After he sees the light at the end of Act I, the second half has more in store for him and us than simple, inevitable revenge. Beane keeps things more interesting than that as Evan searches out some of Alexa's myriad previous victims among Manhattan's emerging young celebs. Alexa had them dazzled when they were, like Evan, at the fuse-lighting stage of their skyrocketing careers. Perhaps the most illuminating information Evan unearths is why he was the only mark to not cut his losses and get on with his life. The answer helps him devise the perfect way to get back at her, after his first very clever plan fizzles.

Laub completely and perfectly inhabits Alexa, the flamboyant role that garnered an Obie for its New York incarnation. She plays her as smart as well as cunning, sometimes with millisecond hesitation revealing deliberation behind her silly-me insouciance. Most remarkably, Laub accomplishes a radical transformation from Alexa's pre-con artist identity, without making that proto-self drab or less than sharp and interesting in her own right. Because of this, Alexa comforting Evan with the observation that they have art to protect them, "Even if our greatest creations end up being ourselves," has greater resonance in retrospect.

In multiple supporting parts, Jill Blythe Riemer and Susan Deily-Swearington provide varied personalities to such characters as backup singers, a harried secretary and a Muse. Ben Steinfeld provides so much repellent fascination as a snotty, bright mag photog that we'd like the character to return and repel us again. The longest supporting scenes are Algernon D'Ammassa's as an amiable Mike, an artist and early lover of "Alexa" who fills Evan in on her real past.

Set design by William C. Roche is simple and clever for the in-the-round stage configuration: on the floor, speckled like ubiquitous office building terrazzo, are NYC street signs and other familiar icons, and surrounding us are stylized skyscraper outlines. Costuming is crucial in such a haute monde milieu, especially since Alexa takes Evan to buy his first expensive suit, and Phillip Contic comes through in fine style.

Even though the first half is riotously entertaining, the less antic second half is riveting throughout its convincing unfolding. I have my fingers crossed that Brown Summer Theatre will grab the latest Douglas Carter Beane creation, The Country Club, for next year if it's available. In their hands it's likely to be another must-see.